GRUB Multi boot system
 

I tried installing Linux on a second hard drive that I had. Everything was working great till for some reason the installation wasnt recognizing the second cd (which I know is fine). After fighting with that for quite a while and it saying it was successfull and it really wasnt I finally disconnected my windows drive (which I probably should have done from the start) and then installed. Everything seemed to work fine that time and now I have linux and no Windows. Is there a way I can add to GRUB my windows operating system? Because I think it originally tried to load itself on my windows disk. All I know is that I want my windows back, but I want to keep my linux.

Another thing I have noticed about GRUB is that I upgraded my kernel and now it is saying I have 4 different options in the GRUB (I am running a multi-processor machine) so I should only have 2, but there are 4.

Thanks any help or linux tips would be much appreciated.

JS

How are your drives connected right now?
As for the options in grub, you can edit them in /boot/grub/grub.conf(or menu.lst)
The old kernel is kept there so that if something goes wrong with the new kernel you still have the option of going back.

Hi JsPatriot,
The reason for you to have 4 options in the grub menu may be you have 2 for the old kernel and 2 for the new. For eache ot the two sets, one of each may have "console text" or "text mode" and the other is the first and default boot which enter graphics mode.
It is easy to set the windows to be booted by grub. If you installed the linux disk as the first, you have to install windows as the second and add one more entry in grub. I think the graphical environment of FC has some utility to add your windows disk, but in reality, all you need is to edit the grub configuration menu, which is named /boot/grub/grub.conf or /boot/grub/menu.lst. You have to add to it

Okay my drives are connected through IDE cables. Is that what you mean?

As for the windows boot option, it gives me the following error.

Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format

Press any key to continue...

So I dont know whats up. Maybe I messed up my windows installation? I hope not. :( If I did then I need to write alot of CD's with the information and go from there.

JS

Hi JsPatriot,
The question Demonbane did to you was, if you have 2 hds, installed XP in one of those and Linux in the other, what is the order of the disks. When you boot, the linux disk appears as primary master or this is the windows disk.
As you are booting linux as we suppose, can you post the results of the commands "fdisk -l" and "df -v", and also the listing of your grub.conf? This files will help us to clarify the problem you have.

Have a nice week end!

Okay when I installed linux (and actually got it to work) I had disconnected my drive windows drive which was primary master. The linux drive is secondary master.

fdisk -l returned the following:
df -v returned the following:
The grub.conf before I tried the above (windows add in thingie):
The grub.conf now:
When I click the windows it gives me an error that is as follows.
Thank you everyone for your help and I hope someone can come up with a solution! :)
JS

I think that you might try removing the two map lines from your menu file. From what I understand those are meant to trick Windows into thinking it is installed on the first hard disk. It is already installed there so removing those might do something.

Oh also add makeactive below rootnoverify.

http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue64/kohli.html

Hi JSThePatriot,
As Kroenecker said, you must remove the lines "map (hd0) (hd1)" and "map (hd1) (hd0)". In my prior post I suggested it based on the supposition your windows drive was the second. Also, I guess the lines where you see "(hd0)" or "(hd0,x)" in the Fedora entries should be changed to "(hd1)" and "(hd1,x)" as your linux is on the second disk. I refer to the entries "splashimage" and "root (hd0,0)" in the FC entries.

If you set the bios to boot from your Linux drive(looks like your are) then you do need the map line

When I did that all it did was say Booting... then under that it showed everything that you had me put in the .conf file.

JS

I have the same problem that patriot has. Using the information from the other posts, I configured my grub.conf however when selecting windows from the menu the lines from the windows section of grub.conf with a message saying that there is an error in them.
I cannot load Windows even by setting the BIOS to load through the hard disk with windows, while loading windows stalls. The only way to load windows is to disconnect the hard disk that has Linux on it. I have tried all the suggestions such as using the makeactive command, unsuccessfully.

Dang you would think that with this many of us having a problem they would have a solution for it.

JS